


Spectacle Island

by chaya



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-13 08:30:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5701822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaya/pseuds/chaya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clearing out some new territory leads to something Hancock didn't expect, and can't completely account for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is made up of parts one and two from [my FO4 sideblog](http://buzzbites.tumblr.com/), where you can see me reblog cute fanart and ramble about headcanons.

The island isn’t easy to get to, but damn if Hancock can’t see why it’s worth the trip once he gets there. Alice was smart to bring along some spare firepower to clear out the mirelurks, but once that’s taken care of, and if the tower gizmo works half as well as she says it will, this is going to be a really solid settlement.

“See over there?” She lowers her shotgun and points toward something colorful and geometric off in the distance. Hancock squints - shipping containers? That many?

“What’s in there?” he wonders aloud.

“Not much anymore,” she says with a grin he’s grown to love. “Curie helped carry a lot of it back to land. I’m thinking a rainy day’ll come along soon, I’ll open the rest then.”

Hancock looks up at the sky. “Wouldn’t say no to some rain tonight,” he grouses. It’s been unfairly hot for almost a week now, and there’s been little relief.

“You’re telling me.” She readjusts the pack on her shoulder. “Ready for the north side?”

“Ready,” he confirms, and they start creeping forward, rising sun casting shapes on the water.

**

The one thing Alice seems to really hate about the world - the future, as she sometimes call it - is the bugs. She’s gotten better about checking corners and niches for ferals, and she’s never had much trouble with the lumbering morons that are supermutants, or predicting the short-sighted mistakes that most human enemies make as easy as breathing.

But the bugs. Apparently they all used to be smaller than your thumb and they never used to spit anything. They zip around the air and are almost guaranteed to put her in a foul mood.

“S'your favorite,” Hancock warns, hearing the buzz to his right and knowing they don’t have much time. Alice curses over the corpse of a softshell and switches weapons, taking aim for the crest of the hill just as the hatchling comes over. It doesn’t take long to take down, but the bloatflies must have heard the commotion and decided to join in. Hancock sets his jaw and takes a knee behind a larger rock, trying to pick off as many as he can before they reach Alice.

Too many, too fast. He takes a gross spurt of the acidic goo to his shoulder, but he knows from experience it’s not quite strong enough to burn through the fabric. He grimaces and takes down one bug before it can swoop in for a direct hit just as he hears an annoyed cry from his left.

“Okay over there?” he calls, forcing himself to keep his eyes on the swarm. He can see a few in his peripheral vision that he hadn’t noticed before - they must have come from the other side, coming to Alice directly. She’s still moving quickly, killing them as fast as she can, so she’s not in mortal danger. He reloads and focuses on drawing the rest toward him, where his shotgun can take care of them easiest.

The last one gets crushed by his boot. He snarls at it and looks up, hearing quick brush movement. Alice is booking it toward the water, slinging the pack off her shoulder and leaving it behind.

“Alice?” it comes out with a little more vulnerable concern than he’d really planned on.

“Got me in the face,” she calls back, and he realizes now that her fretting hands are at the clasps of her chest piece, starting to strip down to get in the water. He feels a mix of alarm and curiosity as he follows after her, picking up the abandoned bag, then the chest piece and arm guards.

“Damn,” he comments, looking at the huge splash of yellowy mucus on the chest piece. “They really gotcha, huh.”

“Two.” She sounds a little embarrassed about it.

“There were, like, eleven of them,” he comforts.

“Fuck.” She’s kicking off her boots. “No way around it. I’m taking the suit off.”  
The sound of the zipper cements it in reality. Hancock stiffens and takes a few more steps to the shore so he can put his back to her, focusing on gathering up all the belongings and setting them on a flat rock for later. She says something he doesn’t catch and then the familiar blue vault suit is tossed in a crumpled heap to his left.

God. He picks it up gingerly and lays it flat on the rock too. The collar is stained greenish yellow. He resists the urge to turn and examine her face, knowing he’d not be able to stop looking at her.

_She takes you with her. She trusts you. Don’t fuck that up for yourself, John._

“I’ve got an idea,” she says, raising her voice over the sound of the waves.

 _I’ve got several_ , he bites back. “Turn this place into a vacation resort?” he guesses.

She laughs. “Fuck you. Dig around in my pack, there’s an oven mitt and at least one bar of soap.”

An oven mitt? What? Hancock starts rooting around for the items, making a point of keeping his head down. “Why’d we bother with the rowboat if you wanted to play mermaid so bad?”

“It’s nice, actually.” She sounds pleased. “A little chilly, but a nice damn break from the humidity.”

He fidgets. “It didn’t get in your eyes or anything, right?”

She makes a sound like she’s touched he asked. He winces. “It got on my forehead and it was slipping down… kinda glad you didn’t watch me clamber in here, I had my head tilted way back like a damn feral to keep it from dripping down into my eyes.”

 _Only kinda glad?_ He stuffs the bar of soap in the red-and-white oven mitt and waves it around a little so she can see it. “Comin’ atcha,” he calls, tossing it in the direction of her voice.

“Feel like I’m catching - ha! Got it! - the damn bouquet.”

“Flowers?” he hazards, unsure what she means.

Soft splashing sounds. “An old wedding thing,” she says. “The bride used to throw a bouquet over her shoulder, and all the women would try to catch it.”

“Oh.” Her weird little anecdotes about pre-war life are often more confusing than informative, but he’s fond of them anyway. “Well, next time tell me so I can dress the part.” She snorts in laughter, and he grins, egged on. “I’m sure I could sweet-talk Deacon into digging something up for me. Guy’s gotta have a secret closet somewhere full of all those outfits, right?”

Alice is still laughing. “Oh my god, the image.” She quiets down and lets out a deep sigh. “Jesus. Should’ve thought of this ages ago.”

“Thought of what?”

“Turning an oven mitt inside out and soaping it up. It’s like a loofah.”

“A what-ah?”

“A… a rough but soft thing that you use to scrub at your skin.”

Hancock tilts his head and thinks about it - the sheepskin texture of the inside of an oven mitt would lather up pretty good, actually, and all he has to do is not build on that image and think of Alice using it on herself. Wait. Shit.

“Sounds nice,” he says finally, hoping it doesn’t sound as indecent as what he’s thinking of.

“Be even nicer if I could reach the dried sweat on my back,” she grouses, a little self-deprecatingly. “I can learn to haul a missile launcher around without wrenching my back, but I can’t… reach…”

Hancock stares fixedly at the pack and the pile of clothes on the rock.

“Would you mind, Hancock?”

Fuck.

“Hancock?”

“Yeah,” he says without thinking, and then realize he’s agreed to… something. He glances over and sees that she’s waist-deep, back to him, holding out the makeshift sponge over her shoulder. “Um. Lemme get my boots off.”

His fingers definitely don’t fumble as he yanks them off and rolls up the cuffs of his pants before realizing he’s just going to have to chuck them too or get them wet. “You couldn’t’ve done this in a tub?” He grouses, trying to cover his more suspect emotions with annoyance. The tails of the coat will get wet if he doesn’t take that off too…

“I will next time,” she promises. “God, I didn’t realize how much I missed feeling clean. We could pump some water at Sanctuary and heat it over the fire…” When she lets out a drawn-out sigh of desire he nearly trips over his own feet in the first few inches of water.

“Codsworth’ll have a field day if you let him put some kinda spa together.” He takes the mitt out of her hand, now allowing himself to study her a little closer. God. Her skin looks unbelievably soft, only a few light scrapes and scars near her shoulders and what he can see of her left forearm. It’s - “Are you still wearing your pip-boy?”

Something about her body language tightens. “I’m used to it,” she mumbles.  
“You vaulties,” Hancock chides, and holds on to that judgmental feeling so he can start drawing the mitt up and down her spine without popping one in his shorts. “Never take those things off for anything.”

“Makes me feel safe.”

“I’m _right here_.”

A beat.

“I mean,” he continues, and alternates between not touching her and rubbing more vigorously, creating more suds and some light red pressure marks on her skin. “I mean, that’s why I’m here, right? To help you, to shoot shit up with you, to-”

“Hold on.”

His hand stops at the nape of her neck and he fights the urge to look over her shoulder to see what she’s doing - if he caught a glimpse of her, he might not be able to look away. But the clacking sounds are distinctive of a latch, and then she’s holding the pip-boy over her shoulder, for him to take.

“Huh.” He takes it with his free hands, inspecting the heft of it a moment before wandering back toward shore and tossing it onto her pile of clothes. When he wades back in, she’s glancing over her shoulder, watching him. He tries not to meet her eyes. “Guess you’re tryin’ to make a point with that, huh?”

“Succeeding, I think,” and she turns her head again, both arms crossed lightly over her chest as he tries to figure out how to draw out the clearly simple task of scrubbing up the one portion of her back that she can’t reach.

Her hips are hard not to stare at. Her waist isn’t small - the muscles keep her from having any chance at the ‘petite’ look - but her hips, oh, they’re more than big enough to give her that hourglass shape. With the sun where it is, the light glancing off the water keeps him from looking any further, and he’s actually kind of glad for it. She’s giving Hancock some sort of gesture here, of trust in him to do right by her, and apparently to be able to fend off anything that needs fending while she’s literally naked and vulnerable. This isn’t the kind of time to go peeking at something not meant for him.

The ends of her hair drift against her shoulders. He watches the wind play with it for a while before realizing she’s probably wondering what the fuck he’s doing.

“Okay,” he says, and turns, sloshing his way back to land and pulling his pants back on, his jacket, his hat. He digs out the spare flannel shirt and tosses it in Alice’s general direction when he hears her come back, giving her a chance to dry off before she contorts herself into that skintight blue thing that haunts his dreams.

He feels agitated now. Like this whole thing was a tease. Not so much from Alice, not knowingly, but more from the world in general. He keeps his back to her and looks north, knowing she’ll want to clear the last quarter acre or so before they start heading home.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm a fuckup, this is a repost of a chapter I thought was a dupe. Here's parts 3 and 4.

Hancock sets the inhaler down on the floor, rolling his head to the side to study Nick’s expression.

“You’re doin’ the thing,” he slurs.

Nick’s eyes slide over to him, all glowy and all-knowing. “Hm?”

“You’ve got the face. The detective face.”

Nick draws one leg up to his chest, leaning against the wall with a slight wooden creak. “I figure the sooner I can figure out what you’re moping over, the sooner I can figure out how to get that hangdog look off your mug so I don’t have to see it anymore.”

Hancock has known for some time now that Nick is both an excellent and terrible ‘traveling partner’. Nick never partakes, for obvious reasons… as well as some moral ones, probably… but he never judges. Just sticks around and listens and makes sure Hancock doesn’t climb onto the roof and moon Danse across the road.

These are important qualities in a traveling partner.

“So you gonna spit anything out, or you just gonna stare at nothin’?”

Hancock’s eyes refocus. “Huh? Oh.” He rubs at his face. The world is pleasantly swirly and the general ache in his chest has subsided to dull sort of heavy feeling. “Nick, I gotta… I gotta get over her.”

Nick’s eyes widen in something like surprise. “What?”

“It’s making me sour. I don’t wanna be that guy that slogs through life all pissed off and bitter because he can’t…” There was an end to that sentence, but he’s lost it. He rubs the heel of his palm against the spot between his eyes. “It’s bumming me out. But I’m s'posed to be here. We’re helping. Goodneighbor can run isself a while… I need to be here but I can’t… you know.”

“It’s always a dame,” Nick mutters.

“She’s _different_ ,” Hancock insists. “You haven’t seen her. I mean, you’ve seen her, but she…” He fumbles for the inhaler again before giving up on it and dedicating his concentration to gesticulating incoherently. “You know how she’s is. And it was all bad enough before I had to see her naked, and now I can’t-”

“Hancock, what the hell have you been using?”

“No, it’s true!” Hancock points southeast with a wild swing of his arm. “I didn’t look, though, Nick. I mean, I looked, but I didn’t peek.”

Nick’s turned to him now, like Hancock’s finally spitting out something worth listening to. “If you’re not recounting a good hallucination or a really awkward dream, then start from the beginning.”

“Spectacle Island,” Hancock hiccups, pillowing his head with his forearm. “Bloatbugs. She had to wash off.”

Nick cants his head. “And you couldn’t just watch for mirelurks? You had to-”

“I _didn’t_ ,” Hancock repeats. “There was a spot she couldn’t…” He reaches over his shoulder to his back in illustration. “She made me come in and get it for her.”

Nick goes quiet.

“She’s so soft, Nick. I don’t mean because she’s not a ghoul. I mean, I don’t know, maybe it’s the pre-war livin’, but it’s so…” He drifts off and stares at the ceiling. Something in the back of his mind tells him he should be a little quieter about this stuff, but she left this afternoon with Dogmeat. He’s safe.

“Couldn’t reach,” Nick echoes strangely.

“Yeah,” Hancock confirms, not really listening. “It was hard enough seeing her dropping a sniper on a sandbag and taking out a gunner from two hundred feet. That gets any guy’s blood pumping, dunnit?”

“She couldn’t reach a _spot_ on her _back_ ,” Nick’s saying, like there’s something important about it Hancock should be focusing on.

“Nobody’s perfect,” Hancock mumbles. “Stiff joints. Who cares. Can still… stab a raider in the throat and haul him up to take incoming fire….”

The hazy memories of the rooftop are fizzling, too distant to really latch on to in his current state. Nick’s pulled out his pack of cigarettes, lighting one up. Hancock smiles vaguely. It’s nice to travel together, however unequally.

“I’ve been around this world a while now, but some things just haven’t been part of my itinerary, not personally.” Nick blows out a thin stream of smoke. “But when I think back, I can remember overhearing a few kids in Diamond City try to catch each other’s attention.”

Hancock grunts noncommittally, wondering if Nick is thinking about anything in particular.

“Seems like a fella’d go talk to a lady and if she didn’t like it, she’d tell him to buzz off.”

“Or threaten to knock 'em on his ass,” Hancock adds mildly. (Those were usually the best girls.)

“Is it still like that?”

Huh? “Yeah,” Hancock says, rolling onto his back now. The room shifts for a moment. “I mean… hasn’t it always been like that?”

“Used to be a little more subtlety involved than just walking up and saying you wanna invite her back to your shack…” Nick shrugs. “Starting to think maybe you’re not used to subtle gestures of interest.”

“Mmm.”

“Like maybe you wouldn’t even notice one if it smacked you upside the head.”

“I’m not stupid, Nick. I’d notice if… if there was anything.”

“Of course,” Nick says dryly.

“How _did_ it used to go?” Hancock pushes himself up on his elbows, feeling an idea swirl into his head. “Maybe… I mean, ain’t nobody around here knows how things really went back then. I mean, _you_ do. Daisy does. But that asshole Danse, he’s got no idea what things were like back then. MacCready either… if I knew how to act just right, that’d give me a leg up on them, face like mine or no, right?”

“I think you’re coming at this from the wrong-”

“Come on, Nick, you were there.”

“In a manner of speaking." 

"What’d guys do?” Hancock scoots forward enough to jab at his leg. “They gave women cards, right? I’ve heard that much.”

Nick nods hesitantly, puffing at the cigarette. “I don’t know if that’s really your style, Hancock.”

“It could be. What kind? Code cards? Access cards?” He’s pretty sure he’s got some old ones back in the storerooms, ones that go to buildings long decrepit. Or do they need to be useful ones? Is it a practical gift?

Nick snorts and draws a hand over his face. “Not those kind of cards,” he says lowly. “The right ones aren’t around anymore.”

“Well, fuck,” Hancock grouses.

“You really can’t just go tell her?”

“No, moron.” Hancock jabs his leg again. “ _Anybody_ can tell her she’s hot as anything'n holds her gun right. I’ve gotta make up for some serious deficiencies, Nicky, I’ve gotta have an ace up my sleeve. Some of that old-world…” He frowns. “Old-world…”

“Romance?” Nick hazards.

Hancock snaps his fingers. “Yes.”

“So, she can’t possibly hold a torch for you because you’re a ghoul, but she might change her mind if you act all classic?”

“She’s…” Hancock tilts his hand back and forth. “I mean, maybe? I can work around it? Ever since Garvey explained that ghouls never just turn feral out of the blue, she seemed to be okay workin’ with me… shit, I wasn’t supposed to tell anybody he told me about that. Fuck it. You’re not Alice, doesn’t count.”

Nick’s looking at him like he’s the stupidest guy in the world. Hancock stares back at him for a moment before realizing what he must mean, dropping back down onto the floor and groaning.

“You’re right. Shit. I don’t have a chance.”

“That’s _not_ what I-”

“Nothing’s gonna make up for my face. Back in her day everyone looked like a damn movie star, no way I can-”

“You’re being an idiot.”

“I know. I know.” He swats at the inhaler. “Jet’s got me overconfident. You’re right, Nicky. No climbing the roof. No chasing Alice.”

The silence stretches on for a while. Hancock remembers vaguely that this whole conversation started because Nick was talking about being sick of his mopey face, so he carefully throws an arm over it to spare Nick the view.

“Flowers,” Nick says slowly.

“Hn?”

“Flowers,” Nick repeats. “Don’t pick any damn thistle, nothing that itches. Nice ones.”

“Flowers.”

“Nice music.”

“Can’t sing worth shit.”

“So turn the radio on. Something slow. Switch over to the classical station if _Sixty Minute Man_ is playing.”

Hancock grunts noncommittally.

“Do you want her or not?”

“You _know_ I do.”

Nick taps his cigarette, making ash drop down to the floorboards. “So fuckin’ try.”

**

**

Hancock wakes up with an incredible hangover and the sound of the water pump squeaking noisily. He rolls over and tells himself that the first thing he will do when he can stand the thought of sunlight is the oil that damn thing.

**

“Just be thoughtful,” Nick mutters, passing him later at the spot between the cul-de-sac and the main road. Hancock rubs his face and realizes he’s expected to man up now. He really is.

**

He’d left Fahrenheit with his ideas on what to do with the cleared-out warehouses in Goodneighbor. Hancock wondered if she’d finished the repairs yet on the first building; at least enough to move some new people in. It wasn’t going to be warm forever, and the more drifters who had a roof over their heads, the better. He toyed with the idea of writing her a letter and sending it off with Carla or one of the other caravans.

_Hey Fahr. Things are good. Killing all the right people. Helping the rest. Really fell for that girl I left with. Got a feeling you’re a better mayor than I ever was._

He’s still digging up some paper to go with his pencil when hears voices near the bridge - people welcoming somebody back. It turns out to be Alice and Dogmeat, tired but whole. She drops the bags of shotguns and boards - supermutants - off with Preston before laughing at something Curie said, and then she’s making a beeline for her house. She must really be tired. She usually has dinner with everyone if she’s back in time for it.

“Hellooo?”

Hancock jumps as Piper raps on the door frame again, glaring. “What? _What?”_

“Jeez.” Piper pulls a face. “Was just gonna ask if you felt like heading to Abernathy tomorrow.”

“I dunno. Why?”

Piper jerks her thumb over her shoulder. “Blue says she’s got enough parts to put up some more defenses after the raider thing last week. Needs some people help carry.”

“Strong’ll always do it.”

“Strong’s likely to scare them shitless,” Piper says, and she’s not wrong. “You know what, forget it. I’ll ask MacCready.” She pushes off the building, turning toward the far building of the settlement.

“It gonna take all day?”

“Til afternoon, at least. Why, you gotta movie to catch?”

**

The next morning, once he’s sure Alice and MacCready have left and the others are busy with patrols and crops, he figures it’s safe to start.

Alice’s house is open to the general public; settlers float in and out of the second bedroom at will, depositing any good scrap they think she might be able to use. The living room is crammed full of chairs and couches for when they hold ‘town meetings’.

(Hancock likes those. Not because he enjoys the sound of Marcy’s voice, but because it’s such an improvement from his dramatic but very one-sided balcony setup back in Goodneighbor. Alice has a favorite chair she sits in, but it isn’t particularly bigger or nicer than the random assortment in the room. They all sit as equals.)

The bathroom is an unexplored area for Hancock, but he’s not surprised that it’s also being used for storage. Without real plumbing, they’re not good for much more than a walk-in closet.

The tub, once he gets all the leather scraps out of it and into the other room, looks serviceable. A few minutes of digging through the bins labeled 'RUBBER’ found him a drain stopper, and miracle of miracles, porcelain is dirty as fuck, but it’s definitely watertight.

Nobody notices the two boxes of Abraxo taken from the workshop.

**

“Going for a walk, Mayor?”

Hancock tenses at Preston’s voice. There’s nothing wrong with the guy, not really, but he’s heading for the woods on a mission, not a friendly stroll with a pal. It’s too late, though; Garvey is already slinging his gun over his shoulder, falling into step with him.

“Were you at the chem station earlier?”

“No,” Hancock replies, then frowns. “Oh. It’s Abraxo.”

“Ah. Cleaning day for you?” Preston smiles that perfect fucking smile and looks up, taking in a deep breath. “Good day for it. You can open the windows, let some fresh air in… and wind’s southerly, so no brahmin smells wafting in.”

“Yup.” Hancock stuffs his hands in his pockets. The drab green rifle bag over his shoulder is clearly empty, and he’s already starting to see hubflowers to the north. How the hell does he pick them without giving himself away…? Psycho. He’ll say he’s making Psycho.

**  
Alice arrives late, after dinner’s come and gone. Hancock finds her right as Mama Murphy tries, for the third time, to offer her some radstag leftovers.  
“I snacked on fruit over at Abernathy, I’m fine, I promise.”

“You sure, honey?” Murphy’s got that parental frown down to a T.

“Positive.” Alice notices Hancock hovering near her shoulder, turning and smiling. “Hey there! Been holding the fort while I’ve been gone?”

“Pretty self-sustaining around here, to be honest.” Hancock smirks a little. “Between the new pistols you gave the settlers and the turrets, I really haven’t had to engage in my usual bloodshed.”

Alice’s laugh is loud and enthusiastic. “My deepest apologies.” She waves to Murphy as she turns toward her house, and he follows, mind on the pot of hot water on her stove. This is either a great idea or he’s going to seem like some kind of stalker. He was at his third bucket of water when he remembered something about how folks used to be more defensive about their personal space… not just their bodies, but their houses. Maybe his gesture isn’t so old-world after all? Treating it all just as space?

“Hancock?”

“Yeah?”

“I just asked you if you wanted to-” She’s frowning, sweat matting her bangs to her forehead and mixed with the smudges of dirt near her temple. “You wanna come in?”

To talk, she means, So he can get whatever it is on his chest. “Yeah, just, um,” Can he drain the tub somehow without her noticing anything amiss? “Actually, I sorta put something together for ya.”

He turns his head away, getting the door for her, almost missing the way her eyebrows start to rise. She goes in, walking immediately to the pot and lifting the lid - she seems surprised that it’s not food.

“The rest of the water’s cold, so I just kept that… I don’t know, you seemed to like the beach before, and this was maybe more… now you can do your pre-war hygiene routines in peace.” That wasn’t exactly clear, he realizes, and she seems to feel the same way, blinking at him a few times before setting her bag down and looking at the heated water again. Then, after a revelation, she disappears down the hall.

This was a terrible idea. He has no idea what this means. He had to double-check with Nick that 'drawing a bath’ definitely had nothing to do with sketching. He should leave.

“ _You_ did this!?”

Fuck. “Um,” he calls back. “Is it stupid?”

“Are these gourd blossom petals?”

“They, they smell nice.” He grimaces down at the rug on the living room floor. “Listen, I’m outta line, I don’t really know what…”

He trails off as he feels the pit of his stomach turn to concrete. After a moment he notices, in the edges of his vision, that she’s leaning out of the bathroom and looking at him.

“Bring the water,” she says quietly.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Parts 5 and 6. Special thanks to [sorrelchestnut](http://sorrelchestnut.tumblr.com/) (sorrel here on ao3) for betaing.

Well, shit. Okay.

Hancock opens his mouth to say something before realizing his mind is blank. He leaves the room, taking the pot off the stove and carrying it back to the bathroom.

Alice has already turned an enamel bucket over, sitting on it to unlace her boots. Hancock pours the water in, careful not to let it splash, and watches as the steaming water swirls in with the tepid and makes the petals dance around for a second. It doesn’t look half bad, he thinks to himself.

“You can sit here,” Alice says, using her bare foot to nudge the bucket towards him as she starts on the fastenings of her chest piece. Hancock feels himself sink down as instructed, swallowing thickly as she turns her back to him and hauls the metal piece over her head. “After Spectacle Island, I felt bad. I thought I’d made a clear offer and you’d done your best to be polite in ignoring it…”

Realizing there’s no way he’s not allowed to watch in this situation - she could have told him to spin around and face the wall, and by god, he’d’ve done it quick as she liked - his eyes follow her hand as it rises and disappears out of view, toward the zipper of her suit.

“…but I’m starting to think you changed your mind, or maybe my offer was misinterpreted….?”

As she turns, he can see she’s opened it completely, exposing a triangle of soft, pale skin that starts at the collarbones and ends at her navel. He’s committing the curve of her stomach to memory when she starts taking off her wrist guards, blocking his view.

“I thought it might be a test,” Hancock admits hoarsely. “Or that you were tryin’ to say you trusted me now.”

She actually laughs, but it’s not amused, not cruel. “Me saying ‘I trust you’ was months back when we holed up in the comic shop together.” She drops the first wrist guard on the floor, and as she works on the next one her breasts are bracketed by her biceps, pushing together slightly.

Hancock fights to think back. The first time he’d taken night watch, he realizes. “Oh.”

”My fault,” Alice says quietly, “for being so subtle. I’ve been in Rome, but not exactly doing what the Romans do…” And she’s _definitely_  making a show of bending over to lean one hand against the rim of the tub, dipping the other in an inch or two before flinching back. Hancock straightens immediately, readjusting his coat to cover his lap.

“Is it too hot? I can go pump some more from the-”

“No.” Alice laughs again. “Sit back down. God, you’ve really never - I know it’s a bit of a luxury, but I can’t believe nobody has hot baths anymore, even once in a while. It’s so worth the trouble.”

“Provided you’ve got four walls and a lookout,” Hancock says, smiling a little as he relaxes again. “So, you gonna show me what’s so great about 'em?”

The look she gives him through her lashes roots him to the spot. “Why? Are you bored?”

He doesn’t try to hide what he’s looking at, which is, well, everything. Her hair is falling in front of her shoulders in long dark strands, and while he can only see the exposed skin of her chest with her position now, who in the fucking wastes could complain about that? “I’ve got a decent view to keep me occupied,” he rasps.

“You sure know how to compliment a lady,” Alice teases, turning around again and starting to push the fabric of the suit away from her shoulders, letting it fall down to her elbows.

“If it’s-” God, he’s seen her bare shoulders before, her entire back, he _remembers_  Spectacle Island like it was earlier today, but in the light and shadows here, her muscles are cast in better definition. Her shoulder blades are solid planes of milky white skin, divided by two deep valleys of black shadows on either side of first notches of her spine.

It’s more stunning to see this time, somehow more … real? More explicitly for _him_ , to watch and enjoy, and… he was saying something. “If it’s compliments you want, sweetheart, I’ve got ‘em. Many as you want.”

She giggles, and he’s never heard _that_  before. It’s warm and amused and it goes straight to his cock. There’s no way he can hide this with a coat flap anymore, but he’s beyond caring as she shifts side to side, sliding her thumbs under the fabric and tugging it lower, all the way to her ankles, bent and then rising and giving him a complete view of her from behind. Her waist is a gentle curve, once smaller, probably, but filled out with new muscles. Her hips are still the widest part of her, giving mouthwatering definition to the curve of her ass and thighs. His gaze travels over it and he can’t look away until she turns, showing him her side now as she bends over the tub again to check the water.

Her abdomen is defined with muscle and just enough fat to keep the lines of her silhouette smooth. Her breasts hang just low enough for him to know they’re natural, nothing made from a scalpel in Diamond City or its prewar equivalent. Underneath all her armor, her skin looks almost completely untouched.

“You’re amazing,” he breathes.

“I was just about to say the same to you.” She looks up at him and smiles. How can she mean that? How can she be standing completely naked in front of a ghoul and say something like that? But she means it, she doesn’t make up white lies for him and he knows that. “This is a perfect gift.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that, but she doesn’t seem to need a response. She steps in carefully, wincing a little in pain before her foot has even hit the bottom, and he frowns again, unsure of why she’s doing this to herself. If it hurts, shouldn’t it be colder?

“Oh,” she says quietly, in a tone of voice he’s heard before from other women, in very different circumstances. Her bicep flexes a little as, once both feet are in, she lowers herself into it until she’s almost completely submerged.

It’s probably not romantic to rip his pants off and start dealing with this raging erection, right? Almost definitely not romantic?

"I'm gonna move closer," Hancock says finally, and is pleasantly surprised by the warm, cat-that-got-the-canary smile this earns him as she sinks a little lower. Her chin is tilted up to stay dry as she bends one knee and extends the other, relaxing her calf on the rim of the tub. How did he get this lucky?

Hancock takes his opportunity to make up for lost time; he takes up the bar of soap in the sink and starts to lather it over water-slick surface of Alice’s leg. Her skin is so hot from the water.

She lets out a surprised, happy hum. He smirks back at her as he sets the bar back down and strokes the soap from ankle to knee, spreading the soap everywhere. From this new angle he can see all of her, only slightly concealed by the ripples of the water and the dim lighting. She looks like a dream.

"Definitely not clean yet," she murmurs decisively. She stretches her arms above her head in a deliberate display of her breasts. (If she only reached a little higher, her nipples would have risen out of the water too. God.)

He grunts appreciatively and digs his thumbs in around the shape of her calf, massaging. He might feel self-conscious touching her like this, but the suds do a good job of masking the ridges over his fingers and palms. "Yeah, you definitely look like a mess right now."

Alice laughs and shoots him another look. "Next," she decides aloud, pulling her leg back into a bent position and extending the other one for him to take. Small droplets of warm water slide down the arch of her foot, to her ankle, down to the knee of his pants. He allows himself a second to unfasten his pants completely, giving at least a little relief, before picking up the soap again. "Sure got a lotta spots you can't reach," he muses.

A thrill runs up his spine when the light touch up her shin makes her shiver."It's a terrible affliction," she says, voice a little bit caught in her throat. He swallows reflexively. "I can trust you to help me out, right?"

Oh, he has _so_ many ideas on how to do that. "One thing at a time, sunshine." He makes a show of lifting her leg very tenderly by the ankle so he can make sure he's got all the spots underneath. If soap weren't such an awful flavor, it'd be even harder to resist leaning in and kissing the skin. To suck it just enough to leave a mark. The incredible heat of her is from the water, but that look in her eyes is getting more and more intense. He may be winging this, but she's definitely enjoying it. “I’ll take care of ya.”

Her cheeks flush a little at that; his pulse quickens. He’s waiting for the next little joke, the next line traded back to him, but Alice isn’t saying a damn thing. She just shifts and rearranges herself in the tub, tucking her foot back under the warmth of the water as soon as he releases her ankle, resting her elbows and the back of her head on the rim of the tub. Her eyes tilt shut.

 _So do it_ , she’s saying. He gets it now.

Hancock draws in a quiet breath and presses the heel of his hand against the tent in his underwear, giving himself a little relief. He can feel his cock leaking already, sticking to the cloth. It gives him a sweet little jolt as he gets up and moves the flipped-over enamel bucket to the long side of the tub, sitting back down and lathering up his hands before dipping one into the heat of the water. Her thigh is hot and smooth, tense at first under his touch and then relaxing as he drags his knuckles back and forth a few times, his palm along her flank.

“Mmm.” Alice’s eyes remain closed, relaxed, but Hancock gets the feeling she’s getting worked up more than she’s letting on. He can’t help it, pads of his fingers drifting further in to massage the muscles of her inner thigh, then away again, exploring the curve of her hip. She lets out a quiet disappointed sound.

This is too much. He wipes his free hand on the leg of his pants to dry it off as much as possible so he can fumble with his pants, getting his cock out and squeezing the head as his hand explores the curve of her stomach, her ribs - her back arches in a bit of anticipation, presenting her chest to him, and he groans. His hand closes around her far breast and squeezes and he doesn’t miss how her thighs press together all of a sudden under the water.

The suds are completely gone from his hand now, but he can’t be bothered to lather up again. He cups her breast gently and rolls her nipple back and forth with the pad of his thumb, gripping his erection with far less tenderness, and watches the expressions flicker across her face. The flush is down her throat now, disappearing under the water, and he can hear her breathing now. He pinches.

“Hancock,” she moans.

“Tell me.”

“Go on.” The water shifts and ripples as her legs fall open again, inviting, and he can’t say no. Can’t tease her or draw it out. He scoots as close as he can to the tub and traces down her breastbone, her navel, not slowing until he finds her clit by feel. He can’t tell by smell or temperature how worked up she is, considering the circumstances, but her body tenses under him and her jaw clenches just so. Not pain, just so much all at once, and he gets that. He definitely gets that.

He draws two fingertips back and forth over it, slowly, trying to figure out how sensitive she is. When she starts to sit up, it moves her body back, away from his hand, and he starts to pull away to ask what he did wrong when she uses her new leverage to lean over to him, grabbing him by the back of the neck and hauling him closer to kiss her.

“ _Mmmm_ ,” is all he gets out, before her tongue is sliding across the thin seam of his mouth. Her left hand is scrabbling for his under the water, pulling it back to her, silently indicating _come back_ , _more_ , and when he crooks his fingers and fumbles his way back inside her to the second knuckle, she keens against his mouth and pushes her hand on top of his to drag his palm against her clit.

She’s not letting go of him. He’s running out of breath. “Alice,” he says desperately, pulling away the millimeter she’ll allow before getting pulled back in. He rocks his hand back and forth, pressing down on her clit and then pushing into her deeper, again and again. All he can do with himself is squeeze at the base of his cock, holding off the inevitable as the long kiss turns into several shorter ones, punctuated by her gasps of air. “Fuck, baby. Fuck.”

Her hand slips from the back of his neck to his shoulder. The water is soaking through his shirt, but he was already trembling. “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t, oh,”

“Not gonna. I won’t.” He lets her bury her face in the crook of his neck as her body tightens, gripping his shoulder in a vice and thighs coming to bracket his hand and tense, and the long, high sound she lets out against his skin is the sweetest thing he’s ever heard. “I got you. I got you.”

It goes longer than he’d expected. He eases off her clit, still pushing in gently until the aftershocks are gone, until her fingers uncurl from the fabric of his shirt. He can feel when she’s relaxing, gently pulls his fingers out of her, chases down one last brief kiss to her lips in case this is his last chance at it.

Alice is shivering and flushed as she leans back against the wall of the tub, taking long, slow breaths as she comes down. “Fuck,” she says eloquently, and he smirks, agreeing. He wants to say something, ask her how it was or if she wants to do something else, but he doesn’t want to interrupt this little moment. Where maybe she’ll want more. Where it could go anywhere. She only zones out for a few seconds, reveling in the feelings, but he takes the opportunity to study her face, the new relaxed slump of her shoulders.

“Stand up,” she says finally.

He’s yanked out of the moment. “What?”

Alice is gesturing, but she’s - she wants him to face her, and she’s getting up on her knees in the tub, eyes flickering down to his erection. “So I can reach.” Something occurs to her and her eyebrows come together in immediate worry. “Unless you don’t want me to?”

It’s not the first half of an order to tell him to fuck off. She wants to - he scrambles to his feet, feeling silly in just his trousers with his cock jutting out, but this beautiful woman with water-slick breasts and those eyes, she’s getting at the right height to reach him without getting out yet, and she takes him in her perfect wet hand and inspects him for a few terrifying seconds before leaning in, running her tongue back and forth over the head. Hancock can’t breathe.

It takes her a second to ... to something, maybe to make sure this one works like the one she’s seen before. Her hand grips the base of him gently and she’s sucking hard all of a sudden, making him clench his hands at his sides as he fights the urge to dig his knees against the rim of the tub to get as close as he can. He watches the top of her head slide back and forth, ass jutting out and just above the water line as she bends forward to reach him. In his fantasies, she’d let him fuck her, and he’d always make sure she’d enjoy it. He never got so full of himself as to think she’d see a fucked up body like his and want to get this close, put her _mouth_  on...

Her hand gets rougher and twists a little and god, god he can’t, he can’t take this,

“Alice, baby, that’s so good, it’s too much, I’m gonna,”

He hears the splash of her other hand coming out, cupping his balls through his pants and he moans, feeling them tighten. “Mm,” she hums, like she’s acknowledging what he said and going ahead anyway. His nails are digging red lines into his palms, he’s pretty sure. He can’t stop staring at her face.

She pulls off with a pop, taking a few deep breaths before diving back down. “Alice,” he repeats, voice getting more gravelly as he struggles not to make a sound that he’ll never live down. Her eyes are shut and her lips are stretched over him, “god, baby, it’s so, I’m gonna come, you’re gonna ma- ah- ah- _ffffffuck_.”

He doesn’t have the capacity to come this hard and feel embarrassed at the same time. Her mouth doesn’t let up, hands both coming to his hips to steady him as she swallows him down and keeps bobbing back and forth. She only lets go when he’s panting and beginning to slump, licking the tip of him clean and grinning smugly.

A guy could fall in love with a face like that.

Hancock is pretty sure his smile is a little bit dopey, but there’s no fixing it. He starts to shuffle back a little, tucking himself back away and fastening his trousers up when she shakes her head and waves her hand at his lap.

“Just take it all off. Come in while it’s still warm.”

“Huh?” Coming down from the high of his orgasm, he knows she’s seen his face, his bare arms up to the elbow, and now his dick, but the whole picture all at once might be more than any decent girl deserves. He looks uncertainly at the water and she sits up a little straighter, her back flush with the end of the tub to make more room for him. “We might not both fit, sweetness.”

“We will. Come on, you deserve to feel how nice this is before it cools down.” Her expression is warm and easy and he can’t say no, not outright. And she already... I mean, she just sucked him hard enough to wake him from a coma, so it’s not like what she’s seen so far has made her act like maybe she’s changing her mind. He nods and starts unbuttoning his shirt, glad he doesn’t blush anymore when she makes a quiet pleased sound and leans out of the tub to pick the soap up again.

His shirt hits the floor. He works his pants and underwear off in one fell swoop, and of course they drop down to where his boots are still on... biting back a curse, he unlaces them enough to yank them off one at a time over the sound of her giggles.

(But, hey, giggles aren’t gasps or silence. Maybe this’ll turn out alright.)

“Come on in,” she says, settling her left calf along the rim of the tub to make a space for him. He steps in carefully between the space between her legs, tensing as his submerged flesh prickles at the heat. If it’s this warm now, how hot was it to start? Is she part mutant?

He swallows and sits down slowly. The water is cleaner than rivers, than lakes, and the warmth of it is... growing on him. He sighs and leans back until he feels the swell of her breasts against his shoulder blades.  “Mmm.” She slings an arm around him and squirms. The inside of her thigh brushes against the scar along his hip. He lets himself relax, leaning his weight into her completely and feeling a weird sort of calm.

“Not as bad as I thought it’d be,” he mumbles finally.

Her lips press faintly against the pockmarked skin behind his ear. “I hope you’re talking about the bath and not the sex.”

“God, yeah. What you said.”

She tightens her arm across his chest in a brief embrace. “So, listen.”

He can physically feel his heart sinking. The other shoe has been AWOL for this entire evening and now it’s fucking here. “What’s up?”

“I’m not gonna make you follow every single stupid thing we used to do back in the day... to be honest, I don’t miss many of the traditions between men and women.” Her other hand is coming up to his side, drawing the thin bar of soap up and down a few times before sliding down to his hip, his thigh. “But in my time, men used to stay over for the night as a way to say they wanted a relationship. If they weren’t interested than that, and just wanted some... fun for a night, that’s all, they’d make a polite excuse about having lots to do the next day. Then they’d go.”

“Uh-huh,” Hancock says, struggling to follow. Is she the fella? Is she gonna tell him she’s got stuff to do tomorrow? Or is she telling him to...

“Well?” she actually sounds a little tense, hand stilling on his leg.

His expression is incredulous as he stares forward at the wall. She really had to wonder? “I’m stayin’ til you kick me out,” Hancock says bluntly. All in. “I. I don’t know how to do this right, but I wanna stay.”

Alice doesn’t respond at first. He has to fight the urge to turn around and look at her face. “Okay, good.” She sounds happy. She lets go of the bar of soap to wrap her arms around his middle. Chest feeling tight, he looks down at her hands and lays one of his own across hers. “You could also make me breakfast,” she adds as an afterthought.

“Um, okay.”

“And bring it to me in bed.”

“...were you a _princess_  before the war?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hang out on [tumblr](http://buzzbites.tumblr.com/).


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